were the words that passed along the platform from CHAP. officers and men. LXVI. "Shall I send for more powder?" asked Moultrie 1776. of Motte. "To be sure," said Motte. And Moultrie wrote to Lee: "I believe we shall want more powder. At the rate we go on, I think we shall; but you can see that. Pray send us more, if you think proper." More vessels were seen coming up, and cannon were heard from the north-east. Clinton had promised support; not knowing what else to do, he directed the batteries on Long Island to open a cannonade; and several shells were thrown into Thomson's intrenchments, doing no damage beyond wounding one soldier. The firing was returned by Thomson with his one eighteen pounder; but, from the distance, with little effect. At twelve o'clock the light infantry, grenadiers, and the fifteenth regiment embarked in boats, while floating batteries and armed craft got under weigh to cover the landing; but the troops never so much as once attempted to land. The detachment had hardly left Long Island before it was ordered to disembark, for it was seen that "the landing was impracticable, and would have been the destruction of many brave men without the least probability of success." The American defences were so well constructed, the approach so difficult, Thomson so vigilant, his men such skilful sharpshooters, that had the British landed, they would have been cut to pieces. "It was impossible," says Clinton, "to decide positively upon any plan;" and he did nothing. June 28. CHAP. An attack on Haddrell's Point would have been LXVI. still more desperate; though the commodore, at Clin1776. ton's request, sent three frigates to cooperate with 28. him in that design. The people of Charleston, as June they looked from the battery with senses quickened by the nearness of danger, beheld the "Sphinx," the 'Acteon," and the "Syren," each of twenty eight guns, sailing as if to get between Haddrell's Point and the fort, so as to enfilade the works, and when the rebels should be driven from them, to cut off their retreat. It was a moment of danger, for the fort on that side was unfinished; but the pilots kept too far to the south, so that they run all the three upon a bank of sand, known as the Lower Middle Ground. Gladdened by seeing the frigates thus entangled, the beholders in the town were swayed alternately by fears and hopes; the armed inhabitants stood every one at his post, uncertain but that they might be called to immediate action, hardly daring to believe that Moultrie's small and ill-furnished garrison could beat off the squadron, when behold! his flag disappears from their eyes. Fearing that his colors had been struck, they prepared to meet the invaders at the water's edge, trusting in Providence and preferring death to slavery. In the fort, William Jasper, a sergeant, perceived that the flag had been cut down by a ball from the enemy, and had fallen over the ramparts. " "Colonel," said he to Moultrie, "don't let us fight without a flag.” "What can you do?" asked Moultrie; "the staff is broken off." "Then," said Jasper, "I'll fix it on a halberd, and place it on the merlon of the bastion next the enemy;" LXVI. and leaping through an embrasure, and braving the CHAP. thickest fire from the ship, he took up the flag, returned with it safely and planted it, as he had prom- June. ised, on the summit of the merlon. The calm sea gleamed with light; the almost vertical sun of midsummer glared from a cloudless sky; and the intense heat was increased by the blaze from the cannon on the platform. All of the garrison threw off their coats during the action, and some were nearly naked; Moultrie and several of the officers smoked their pipes as they gave their orders. The defence was conducted within sight of those whose watchfulness was to them the most animating: they knew that their movements were observed from the house tops of Charleston; by the veteran Armstrong, and the little army at Haddrell's Point; by Gadsden at Fort Johnson, who was almost near enough to take part in the engagement, and was chafing with discontent at not being himself in the centre of danger. Exposed to an incessant cannonade, which seemed sufficient to daunt the bravest veterans, they stuck to their guns with the greatest constancy. Hit by a ball which entered through an embrasure, Macdaniel cried out to his brother soldiers: "I am dying, but don't let the cause of liberty expire with me this day." Jasper removed the mangled corpse from the sight of his comrades, and cried aloud: "Let us revenge that brave man's death." The slow, intermitted fire which was skilfully directed against the commodore and the brave seamen on board the "Bristol," shattered that ship, and carried wounds and death. Never had a British squad 1776. 28. June. 28. CHAP. ron "experienced so rude an encounter." Neither the LXVI. tide nor the wind suffered them to retire. Once the 1776. springs on the cables of the "Bristol" were swept away; as she swung round with her stern toward the fort, she drew upon herself the fire of all the guns that could be brought to bear upon her. The slaugh ter was dreadful; of all who in the beginning of the action were stationed on her quarter deck, not one escaped being killed or wounded. At one moment, it is said, the commodore stood there alone, an example of unsurpassed intrepidity and firmness. Morris, his captain, having his fore-arm shattered by a chainshot, and also receiving a wound in his neck, was taken into the cockpit; but after submitting to amputation, he insisted on being carried on the quarterdeck once more, where he resumed the command and continued it, till he was shot through the body, when feeling dissolution near, he commended his family to the providence of God and the generosity of his country. Meantime the eyes of the commodore and of all on board his fleet were "frequently, and impatiently," and vainly turned toward the army. If the troops would but coöperate, he was sure of gaining the island; for at about one o'clock he believed that he had silenced the guns of the rebels, and that the fort was on the point of being evacuated. "If this were so," Clinton afterward asked him, "why did you not take possession of the fort, with the seamen and marines whom you practised for the purpose?" And Parker's rejoinder was, that he had no prospect of speedy support from Clinton. But the pause was owing to the scarcity of powder, of which the little that remained to Moultrie was reserved for the mus LXVI. 1776. June. ketry as a defence against an expected attack from CHAP. the land forces. Lee should have replenished his stock; but in the heat of the action Moultrie received from him this letter: "If you should unfortunately 28. expend your ammunition without beating off the enemy or driving them on ground, spike your guns and retreat." A little later, a better gift and a better message came from Rutledge, now at Charleston: "I send you five hundred pounds of powder. You know our collection is not very great. Honor and victory to you and our worthy countrymen with you. Do not make too free with your cannon. Be cool and do mischief." These five hundred pounds of powder, with two hundred pounds from a schooner lying at the back of the fort, were all the supplies that Moultrie received. At three in the afternoon, Lee, on a report from his aide-de-camp Byrd, sent Muhlenberg's Virginia riflemen to reënforce Thomson. A little before five, Moultrie was able to renew his fire. At about five the marines in the ships' tops, seeing a lieutenant with eight or ten men remove the heavy barricade from the gateway to the fort, thought that Moultrie and his party were about to retreat; but the gateway was unbarred to receive a visit from Lee. The officers half naked, and begrimed with the hot day's work, respectfully laid down their pipes as he drew near. The general himself pointed two or three guns, after which he said to Moultrie, "Colonel, I see you are doing very well here, you have no occasion for me, I will go up to town again;" and thus he left the fort. When at a few minutes past seven the sun went down in a blaze of light, the battle was still raging, |